


Songs in Red and Grey

by writteninhaste



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-25
Updated: 2014-08-25
Packaged: 2018-02-14 16:12:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2198328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writteninhaste/pseuds/writteninhaste
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The reproach on your daughter's most beautiful face made me wonder just how she could know. Of that something that happened between you and me so much more than a long time ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Songs in Red and Grey

Arthur’s house is an echoing mausoleum. Eames doesn’t know why he came. It was Yusuf, of all people, who told him about the funeral. It was a courtesy call more than anything. No one was expecting Eames to show. Yet here he was.

And the place was nothing like he had expected. Eames had been expecting some beautifully daring domain. Instead he was faced with the sort of house common in rich developments – all block-faced architecture with a paved drive and a commercially-kept lawn. There was an autumn wreath fastened to the front door. Eames had to reach through it to pull the door knock.

A girl of around fourteen answered the door. Her colouring could have come from either of her parents but there was no denying the resemblance. She looked so much like her mother. Eames realises that he should know her name. But Arthur never told him and Eames never bothered to ask. She stares at him, dark eyes flat and angry. He wonders if she knows who he is. She doesn’t move away from the door; she doesn’t want him here. Eames can say that he blames her. Coming here, now of all times, probably borders on insulting. But he couldn’t stay away.

Arthur’s appearance is jarring. The solid wood of the door had hidden his approach and it’s not until he places a hand on his daughter’s shoulder, pulls her away so he can see who’s standing on his front porch, that Eames even realises he’s there.

Eames can’t decipher the emotions that spill across Arthur’s face. But in the end he steps out of the doorway. His daughter is sent back into the kitchen; to the gaggle of mourners who cup her cheek and stroke her hair. She must hate it. But she’s Arthur’s daughter as much as she is her mother’s and she doesn’t say anything.

Arthur doesn’t seem to know what to do with him. They stand, two aging men, in the middle of his expansive hallway – with it’s marble floors and dark-wood colonnades – and look at one another. In the end, Arthur leads him back outside. Around the side of the house and into the untamed woodland that borders the lawn.

The ground is crisp and hard. Already the leaves are falling from the trees. For want of something to do, Eames plucks one from a branch. It’ a maple leaf, crimson against the leather of his glove. Arthur once owned a coat that colour. Eames had only seen it once. It was after Arthur was married. When he was well on his way to becoming a father. Eames remembers opening his door and finding Arthur standing there. He’d tugged the ring from Arthur’s finger and stripped him from that coat. The only light in the room had been from the stuttering candle sitting on the hearth. The flame had made Arthur’s wedding ring seem very, very bright.

Arthur’s staring at him, and whether he’s trying to figure out why Eames’ is here or how to send him away, Eames can’t tell. He knows he wasn’t the only one. There are a whole host of men Arthur’s daughter would be within her rights to begrudge were they to knock on Arthur’s door. But Eames also knows that he was different. He wasn’t the substitute. She was.

Something must show on his face because Arthur’s lips twist down. She knew. She knew and she stayed. And what that says about her and what that says about Arthur, Eames cannot guess. Their marriage was never his concern. But from the moment that girl was born he was done. Some lines not even he would cross. Still, she must have known. Arthur wears his wedding ring but he also wears Eames’ mark inked into his skin. He never got it removed. Eames knows that.

They’ve reached the circuit of the grounds and they’re back where they started. The slate slabs of the doorstep are no more welcoming this time around. Eames lets the leave fall from his hand. It lands just west of the doormat. Blood on the stone.

Eames isn’t coming in again, they both know that. That girl had enough reason to resent her father, Eames won’t give her another.

“You never told me her name.” He says. And maybe it would have been better not to say anything.

“She’s named for her mother.” Arthur says. “Her name is Ariadne.

**Author's Note:**

> The reproach in your daughter's most beautiful face  
> made me wonder just how she could know  
> of that something that happened between you and me  
> so much more than a long time ago
> 
> Her mother, I can see, lives within her still  
> cause she looked at me with her eyes  
> though I had only just met her right then  
> I feel that she peeled back my guilty disguise
> 
> Did i break the thread, or did you break the thread?  
> well at this point we could ask who cares  
> as for the promises broken and frayed  
> it's 19 years late for repairs
> 
> The grey pewter vase held the deep red rose,  
> one piece of coral shone white,  
> by the brass candlestick near your red velvet coat,  
> is everything I can recall of one night
> 
> Will you please tell me why I remember these things  
> after all of this time, I don't know  
> i must have left all those feelings inside   
> cause that year I had no courage to show
> 
> Was i the name you could never pronounce?  
> or did i even figure at all?  
> all of this happened before she was born  
> did i shadow her young pencil marks on the wall
> 
> Still i am sure i was only but one  
> of a number who darkened that door  
> of your home and your hearth and your family and wife  
> who'd been darkened so often before
> 
> Oh, the red leaf looks to the hard gray stone  
> to each other, they know what they mean  
> somewhere, their future is still yet to come   
> in ways that are yet as of now unforeseen
> 
> ~Suzanne Vega, Songs in Red and Grey


End file.
